


Circling

by htebazytook



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, First Time, Humor, London Underground, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Romance, Slash, Smut, the Tube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 09:23:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htebazytook/pseuds/htebazytook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exhibitionism! Symbolism!  Lestrade!  John had a whole new life and mode of transport, and Sherlock picks up right where he left off.  Everything's changed, except that it hasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circling

**Author's Note:**

> The London Underground inspired Neil Gaiman to create Neverwhere. It inspired me to write some porn.

**Title:** Circling  
 **Author:** htebazytook  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Warnings:** exhibitionism?  
 **Disclaimer:** *disclaims*  
 **Pairing:** John/Sherlock  
 **Time Frame:** post Reichenbach  
 **Author's Notes:** The London Underground inspired Neil Gaiman to create Neverwhere. It inspired me to write some porn.  
 **Summary:** Exhibitionism! Symbolism! Lestrade! John had a whole new life and mode of transport, and Sherlock picks up right where he left off. Everything's changed, except that it hasn't.

 

John stands on the jostling train and stares at the tube map until his vision blurs. The car is packed with affable tourists and silent business people in well tailored Whitehall uniforms. John feels stuck somewhere awkwardly in between, not happy or severe enough, and his averageness just puts him ironically out of place. He stares at the map til the blunt black lines echo as neon shadows whenever he glances away. 

The train rattles to a halt and John pushes his way through the alighting crowd, trying very hard not to be annoyed by unnecessarily tall people with their sign-blocking shoulders. He finds an empty little avenue between two slower walkers and overtakes them, and is just straining his head to catch a glimpse of the _Way out_ sign when he glimpses something else entirely.

It isn't that the world stops, in fact the world continues the same as always, with screeching trains and the echoing impatient footsteps of other people. Artistically black and white against the rainbow of mosaic walls is Sherlock, looking quite the same as always. John stares at him and glances away and sees the echo of him, bright and alive. Sherlock smiles, losing control of his face for the splitest of seconds before his expression settles back into cool neutrality. 

Some oblivious French girls run into John with their designer bags and continue on their way as though everything hasn't just changed in an instant.

And suddenly Sherlock is there to drag him away from the crowd to an empty platform and say to him under the elusive _Way out_ sign pointing the other way, "Stop gawping. You normally take the Circle Line because it goes through Barbican Station on the way to St. Thomas' Hospital where you've been working for the past five months, give or take. The indentation from a clip-on ID card on the pocket of one of your three good suit jackets—I say three because I assume you've since acquired a new one for the new job—required for a number of hospitals in the greater metropolitan area but you work at St. Thomas' because it is not St. Bart's, it is far enough removed from your usual haunts, and perhaps most notably because they were hiring approximately five months ago. However today you took a little detour to Tottenham Court Road since you're going into work a bit later than usual and fancied a stop off at the British Museum because your coworkers have been talking about the Pompeii exhibition in excess, and I don't say that because you've a ticket stub hanging out of your pocket but rather because uncontroversial yet suitably cultured topics are those typically discussed when speaking with acquaintances at work with whom you aren't truly even office friendly. Your shift starts at five instead of when it normally does at ten because you switched with someone who had tickets to some match or other taking place tonight. No idea what sport it is but they do seem to be at nighttime and you're the sort who enables nearly everyone you meet."

Sherlock's final bitten off word reverberates in the empty ceramic corridor like an exclamation mark and does little to keep John from gawping anyway. Sherlock rolls his eyes. John watches him being animate and suddenly can't catch his breath. "I was sure you'd been banned, after the er, you know. Harpoon incident." _I was also sure you were dead, or are we not talking about that?_

Sherlock blinks at him and John rediscovers the shade of his eyes and the helpless delicacy of the lashes and lower down Sherlock's odd lovely mouth. Then, because John had pondered what if's until he couldn't remember why for months and months, he presses his lips to Sherlock's to find out what if once and for all.

Sherlock's mouth is hard and unyielding against John's at first, but when John pulls away Sherlock leans back in and the kiss grows heated and haphazard very quickly, with John quite forgetting this was meant to be an experiment. Distant trains rumble on like thunder in counterpoint to the pounding of John's blood in his ears.

 _This train is about to depart. Stand clear of the doors . . ._ booms through the platform and brings John to his senses. But Sherlock draws him close again and says, "That's the Central Line on the other platform. Unlikely anybody would need to transfer to the Northern Line this time of day, and the next southbound train arrives here in twelve minutes due to that disruption they keep announcing."

As if that's any kind of assurance. But John is too enchanted by the slide of Sherlock's tongue over his to dwell on it. There's no denying that a bit of exhibitionism is awfully exciting, and especially because John can't remember the last time he'd lived dangerously and not completely hated his world.

Any logical protests are long died out by the time John's got Sherlock pinned to the colorful wall tiles, and the almost closing of Sherlock's eyes and the slow way he looks at John is worth a trainful of scandalized onlookers any day.

Sherlock gasps quietly when John presses his palm flat against Sherlock's groin, and the sound bounces secretly off the walls of the abandoned platform with only John to hear it. John kisses Sherlock's neck to elicit further half-formed utterances as he undoes Sherlock's fly and rubs his erection through his pants. Sherlock groans and arcs into it, pale skin and his scent and his throat exposed as he tips his head back to rest against a joyful red design on the wall, swallowing and apparently unable to speak.

John wants him so sharply. His continued existence, his lately forgotten but eternally striking features, the way he would look at John sometimes like he was actually seeing him.

It smells like dust and metal and sour city smell on the platform but the heat of Sherlock's body overtakes it all. John pushes Sherlock's pants out of the way and wraps his hand around his cock, which is strange in that it isn't as strange as expected, and instead ratchets up John's own arousal almost painfully. John kisses Sherlock more roughly and Sherlock spills deep broken moans of agreement into John's mouth, moves John's hand faster over his cock.

Sherlock pushes at John, making him stumble precariously before John catches onto Sherlock's coat and crowds Sherlock back against the wall. Sherlock tries to outmaneuver again and fails again and pouts like a child. Then, he reaches for John's belt.

John's heart hammers. He scrambles to continue stroking Sherlock as Sherlock slips his hand beneath cloth to trace John's cock as well. They stare at each other for an uncomfortable minute, and just as abruptly as his smile from minutes ago Sherlock blurts out, "I didn't mean for . . . I hadn't anticipated this . . . outcome." 

"So what you're saying is, you hadn't anticipated coming out quite like this?"

Sherlock snorts. "Could do without your pathetic attempts at humor," he says, though his voice has gone reedy and he's short of breath.

"So what's it like then," John asks between sucking at Sherlock's neck and panting against the skin at the feel of Sherlock's clever hand on him, "not to have anticipated something? Novel experience for you, is it?"

But Sherlock isn't interested in conversation anymore—he snags the back of John's shirt collar to hold him still for a searing kiss. John makes an involuntary sound into it and kisses back, pumping Sherlock's cock harder and less leisurely til Sherlock breaks the kiss and pushes his forehead against John's, clutches at him and gasps disjointedly, eyes closed tight and having forgotten all about returning the favor as sensation overtakes him. It's possibly the most captivating that Sherlock has ever been.

"You like being touched like this, don't you?" John says, looks down to stare at the swollen, leaking proof of it. "You can't help it, you can't even help just wanting this like everyone else does, in the end, can you?" John watches Sherlock's turbulent face obsessively and when Sherlock's eyes sliver open John babbles, "Dear _God_ do you have you any idea how you look like this? You're—"

John's cut off by the sudden hum of a fresh crowd disembarking somewhere nearby.

"Oh shit, we've got to—"

"No," Sherlock says, breathier than normal and replacing his hand on John's aching cock again as he whispers to him, "Very unlikely anyone's changing here, they're all just popping above ground to play at being refined like you were and— _fuck_ like that—it's fine it's fine and the next train to Loughton over there is in five—John, God, _God_ , that's— _minutes_ and only two minutes over here until that southbound train but really you shouldn't worry because as I can assure you I'm, I'll, yes oh _God_ yes yes just— _ah_ —"

Sherlock comes, silent and shaking, and he jerks John's cock faster until John says his name so it echoes through the platform and he comes as well.

One minute and seven seconds later when the train arrives, John walks onto it feeling hot under the collar and terrified of having cleaned up too hastily.

Sherlock follows, looking unfairly put together as he rebuttons his suit jacket and says, "Off to your boring little job, then."

"Mm. Hey what are you . . . ?"

Sherlock is soft and warm and near as he says, "Everything's going to be different." He finishes straightening John's jacket, and they stare at the tube map and travel onward like normal.

*

John had got used to taking the tube in Sherlock's absence, and he was loathe to abandon it altogether now. Sure, John was helping him out with cases once again, but he still had his own job and he quite liked the sense of independence that gave him.

One thing he wasn't sure how to feel about on the tube, now, was his apparent Pavlovian responses to the most innocent of announcements.

_This is a Circle Line train via Liverpool Street and Tower Hill. The next station is Barbican._

He thinks of the sound of Sherlock's breathing in his ear, of that delicious desperation that had overtaken him when they'd kissed on a dirty lonely train platform.

John holds tighter to the yellow pole he's secured for himself and stifles a yawn. Last night had been a late one, no thanks to Sherlock waking him up at 2 AM to shout to himself about a case before shouting at John for being unhelpful in his groggy state and storming back into the sitting room to pace loudly. John draws in a deep, calming breath through his nose that fails to relax him as he's suddenly smelling something very particular.

It's a faint but familiar perfume that Sherlock could surely identify instantly, but as luck would have it this time so can John. Or at least he can readily deduce who it belongs to.

Irene favors him with a lopsided little smile. "This seat taken, doctor?" She sits in the empty seat next to where John is standing and beams up at him. She's wearing a those heels with the red soles and a fitted black coat not unlike Sherlock's, fringes of a flowy blue dress peeking out from under.

"I . . . well, _you're_ . . . " What is John even supposed to say. "Still not dead?"

"Apparently not." Irene stares up at him and blinks slowly. It's been long enough that John's forgotten about hating her for the most part, and can instead appreciate her cool eyes and mild smile. 

John looks around the car, filled with equally sleepy morning commuters but long enough after rush hour that it's not uncomfortably full. He lowers his voice because it seems like the thing to do: "Thought you were afraid for your life? Had, well I dunno, someone or other coming after you if you weren't very careful?"

Irene frowns. "Oh! Oh, that's all sorted _now_ , or I shouldn't be in London at all, let alone on the tube. Yes, everything's been dealt with very neatly indeed."

"Right. By, er . . . by Sherlock, or . . . ?"

Irene's frown deepens. "I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself, Dr Watson. Just because I let Sherlock help me out a little once upon a time certainly doesn't mean I _needed_ his help. I think you'll agree having a bit of eyecandy around to perform menial tasks for you isn't so bad, and he was so _very_ eager, wasn't he?"

"Right, yeah. Yeah. _Sorry_ , erm. So, have you . . . phoned him at all, or . . . ?"

"What for? Sherlock would've worked it out, and he'll find me," Irene says, then smirks. "When he wants me. _Awfully_ clever, wasn't it, the way he managed that disappearing act? I've kept the newspaper clippings."

"Yeah." Whenever John had asked Sherlock to explain how he'd survived the fall, Sherlock had thrown The Sun at him and said, _'Read all about it', if you must, though it's hardly relevant_ , and gone back to typing ferociously.

John laughs nervously and scrambles to think of a topic. This was easier said than done however because what the hell was he even supposed to talk about with her about _other_ than Sherlock? Politics? She'd start telling him what various MPs 'liked' and give him some decidedly unwelcome mental images.

The train jostles them both as it comes to a stop, and has John standing a bit too close to her, and of course she has to rake her eyes from his toes to the tips of his ears and smile smugly at him.

"Where are you getting off?" John tries, and immediately wants to kick himself because her smile only deepens.

"Oh, I'll get off at any old stop if I feel like it," she says, holding his gaze as the train starts back up again and sets her hair bouncing side to side subtly. "South Kensington, for today, though."

"Oh right? I used to live in Kensington, actually. Well, when I say lived in Kensington I don't mean, y'know, _lived in Kensington_. Pretty sure my flat still had a _To Let_ sign in the damn window, so. Right. Just a _lovely_ neighborhood, though."

Irene nods politely. "Isn't your stop rather soon?"

John gets off a stop early to escape her, annoyed with himself for becoming so unnerved. 

He could take a taxi, and there are plenty that pass him by, but he'd much rather walk as taking taxis felt a bit like cheating when he didn't have the excuse of his leg or Sherlock's impatience to justify it. The early spring air is icy and refreshing and helps to clear his mind. His jacket isn't nearly insulated enough, but he takes lovely simple pleasures in pulling it tighter around himself and feeling the way his body heat slowly warms him up, having to navigate the whirlwind swarm of pedestrians and cars, the soothing dimness of the day under overcast skies, the morphing landscape of Medieval vs glass vs clean white stone.

*

Sherlock had been typing on his phone within seconds of arriving at the crime scene. He'd said, "Eighteen hours missing, yes?" and Lestrade had nodded and Sherlock had ignored him ever since.

John was stuck smiling and taking occasional notes while Sherlock persisted in whatever it was he was doing. To be fair it was often case related, but then again it was also often related to _another_ case, or sending Mycroft passive aggressive texts, or literally just hitting random buttons on the keyboard because he was bored of the situation.

It doesn't help that the neon clad congregation Lestrade has been interviewing keep glancing uncomfortably at Sherlock despite John's most reassuring _Oh never mind him_ smiles.

They were standing on the South Bank mere feet away from John's place of (legitimate) work, and he was anxious that one of his (legitimate) colleagues would see him, but he was also possibly secretly hoping that they _would_ see him and think him a bit more exciting. 

The trees along the pathway shiver with new leaves like wind chimes and Parliament looms impressively across the choppy water. It's midday and the street above the riverbank spills the fringes of lunch hour rush down to where they're standing, a sea of businessmen on their phones and a steady current of dedicated runners flitting between them. 

The gaggle of said runners' brethren gathered by the wall had been talking nonstop since John and Sherlock had arrived, and their ability to be serious despite their chiefly Lycra get up was admirable to say the least.

"Leslie was always saying she'd come out running with us, with the club here and all, but she always found some excuse or other."

"I can't even tell you how many times I told her you _don't_ go alone, but she fancied herself quite capable enough without my help, apparently, and now looks what's happened . . . "

"When she texted me that she was off running and I can't deny I was a bit annoyed with her for not even inviting me along, and to be honest I was certainly not planning on texting her back, but now she's . . . she's . . ."

"Here's a photograph of her taken, what, just last weekend." The young neon orange woman holding her phone aloft looks so terribly earnest that John reaches out to take it. The victim is a smiling girl of around the same age, long blonde hair and pint in hand and wearing football gear.

John can feel Sherlock looking over his shoulder at the photograph, feels his exhale against John's neck before he returns to his own phone.

"Anytime you wanna chime in here, Sherlock," Lestrade says in response to his silence. "Any leads at all. A place to start searching for her, at least."

"No need to go searching, Detective Inspector," Sherlock says, eyes still glued to his bloody phone. "She's here. Well, nearly."

Lestrade does not look to be in any mood for his bullshit, though, so . . . "What do you mean she's here?" John asks patiently.

"Hit by a car crossing the street after her run," Sherlock says, locking his phone dramatically. "Looked the wrong way. Happens to Americans quite a lot, I'm afraid." Sherlock smiles politely, which he always managed to accomplish in the rudest possible way.

"Sorry, American?" Lestrade says.

"Yes, clearly. Her shirt in that picture—it's not Boston _United_. Not quite the right colors. Most likely a shirt purchased in the US city of Boston. That, plus her hair and makeup and tan and earring placement points to her being an American."

The neon orange runner, looking very disgruntled, says, "Hang on, you saying my roommate must've got herself run over and it's her own fault for being a stupid American?"

"Yes."

"Oh _come_ on," John says. "She didn't automatically look the wrong way just because she's not from here." 

"Not necessarily, but she _did_ get taken to St Thomas' because it's the nearest hospital."

John blinks. "I . . . okay, what makes you think she was . . . ?"

Sherlock shakes his head, looks toward the hospital. "Not a guess. There was a Jane Doe brought in about two hours after Leslie Delaney went for her fateful run. Amnesia, of course, but quite all right otherwise. You may go forth and collect her at your convenience. Well! I think we're done here, John. Shall we go?" Sherlock's already jogging up the steps to the bridge.

The runners gape while John runs after him.

Sherlock is twirling around on the pavement looking supremely antsy. "You work here, John. How the hell do we leave the _glorious_ South Bank, anyway? Bridge is congested, now, for some reason . . . "

"How long have you known?" John shouts, louder than he'd meant to but then it was very windy. "This is where you disappeared to in the middle of the night last night, isn't it? God, I _knew_ that 'midnight snack' story was bullshit . . . "

"Seriously, there's another tube station over here somewhere, isn't there? Waterloo, yes?" Sherlock stands on his tip toes in an attempt to see past a four-story building.

"You couldn't have, oh I dunno, asked _me_ —you know, the one who _works there_ —to look into it?"

Sherlock's off in his own world. "Is that a police escort over there? _Lestrade_!"

Lestrade is just emerging from the bank. "Queen at Parliament? Yeah, the odd escort here and there tends to spring up, for some reason."

"Oh for God's—why is she there?"

Lestrade searches his pockets. "Drat it all I seem to've forgotten Her Majesty's personal itinerary when I left the house this morning. Tell you what, I'll give you two a lift back to Baker Street if you'll stop carrying on up here."

John doesn't talk to Sherlock in the back of Lestrade's police car. He stares out the window at the speeding stone buildings. Things have changed, definitely. John knows his way around the city without Sherlock well enough, and he has his own job and his own thoughts apart from stewing in regret and apathy all the time. They have conversations and inside jokes and sex now added to the repertoire, but apart from a few luscious minutes here and there Sherlock is the same. He's just as dismissive and selfish, just as glued to his phone and case obsessed, brilliant, bored. 

John's phone buzzes in his pocket. Harry, most likely, and he ignores it because it's too tempting to take out his frustration on her. He's further annoyed by the realization that he's as bad as Sherlock in that the only two people he ever texts are his estranged sibling and his dubiously platonic flatmate.

It buzzes again. And again. And on the fourth buzz John sighs and takes it out.

> **That shooting jacket of yours  
> ** **is quite fetching you know.**  
>  **Mainly because it does**  
>  **in fact fit you unlike**  
>  **most of your clothing.**

> **You think this is your  
>  sister, don't you? **

> **Those jeans fit you  
>  rather nicely as well. **

> **I wanted to get on my knees  
> ** **in front of everyone and suck**  
>  **you off out of sheer boredom,**  
>  **back there.**

John suppresses a shudder, dares to shoot Sherlock a glance but Sherlock is staring out the window feigning heedlessness. Oh, John can play this game.

> I should hope so considering  
>  what an arse you've been  
>  in the last 24 hrs. 

> But after that I'd like to fuck you  
>  against that wall by the river,  
>  you know just to keep you  
>  from getting BORED. 

John keeps very still. In his peripheral vision he can see the glow of Sherlock's phone and feel him vibrate with the force of his typing where their shoulders touch.

> **Too late now. Perhaps I'll  
>  nick Lestrade's handcuffs  
>  and cuff you to the car. **

> You're into bondage now?  
>  Why am I not surprised. 

> **I want to see what you'd  
>  do to persuade me to let  
>  you out of them. **

> What if I don't want out? 

> **I'm sure I can think of  
> ** **a variety of things to do**  
>  **to you while you haven't**  
>  **faculty of your hands.**

> Such as? 

"So, John," Lestrade says, having learned long ago that John was his best chance at conversation. "What sort of patients you get in here, then? MP's with broken nails, what with Parliament within jumping distance?"

John laughs for Lestrade while reading Sherlock's latest text:

> **Fuck your clever little mouth.**

"Yeah, I mean sometimes," John says when Lestrade turns around at his lack of response. "None I've dealt with directly, but I've heard from others, that er, that it . . ."

> **Fuck your fantastically  
>  tight arse until you're  
>  begging for it. **

John swallows. " . . . happens . . . "

"Yeah, I—" Lestrade cuts himself off to beep at an adventurous cyclist. "Good _God_ this traffic is obscene."

John is in the middle of typing out a text back to Sherlock when he feels a hand very high on his thigh and looks up and meets Sherlock's ever stunningly piercing gaze. "Not _too_ obscene, please," John says, mouth gone dry.

"Well I can't very well control the traffic can I? D'you know what, once I was driving round at rush hour in the middle of Camden . . . "

But John doesn't hear the rest of Lestrade's anecdote because Sherlock leans in to speak directly into John's ear, "When we get home I'm going to unzip your jeans with my teeth and deepthroat your cock in the stairwell."

John bites back a moan and takes hold of Sherlock's wandering hand to lace their fingers together. Turns his head into Sherlock's hair. "God yes," he whispers. "And you're to look at me while you're doing it and let me come down your throat."

"Oi! You two listening? I can never remember, the turn is past North Gower Street, yeah?"

" _Yes_ ," Sherlock says, though he says it in a velvety tone with heavy-lidded eyes blinking languidly at John.

Okay, so the pros and cons of Sherlock weighed pretty heavily in favor of times like this. John could live with a bit of ego here and there.

*

> **Where have you gone?  
>  S**

> Work? 

> **Ah, boring work.**

> **Shame, I was hoping to  
>  make you come a few  
>  times before breakfast. **

> **Dreadfully boring day so far.**

> I'm so glad you're telling  
>  me this now as I'm passing  
>  Embankment. 

> Haven't you got the  
>  missing tourists case? 

> **Yes.**

John is grateful for the distraction of the cases while at work, though. It was nice to have something to mull over in the back of his mind while he went about filing paperwork or traveling from one wing to another in the hospital. He researches the victims on his laptop during his breaks, eats a hasty Pret A Manger meal while he reads through police reports and tries in vain to find a connection between the hotels they'd stayed at or the London sights they'd all visited in recent days.

John is walking across Westminster Bridge with dusk settling in and streetlights and landmarks beginning to illuminate when his phone chimes. It's bracingly cold outside, especially with the wind gusting up from the river, so he waits til he's in a crammed little Tesco Express buying milk to look at the text.

> **New case.  
> ** **I trust you won't need**  
>  **to go to boring work**  
>  **again tomorrow?**

John stares at it and is nearly suffocated by somebody's enormous bubble coat shuffling past him in the aisle.

> What about the old case? 

> **All the victims went on  
> ** **the same walking tour,  
> ** **one that doesn't book  
> ** **in advance hence the  
> ** **lack of paper trail.  
> ** **The tour guide then lured  
> ** **them with a discount on  
> ** **a second tour. Different  
> ** **tour times were given  
> ** **to each person, so if  
> ** **someone showed up  
> ** **they were alone. You  
> ** **can see how easy it was  
> ** **for the killer to murder  
> ** **them without witnesses,  
> ** **him knowing the back  
> ** **alleys of London and them  
> ** **hapless tourists on their own.**

> **Solved it last night.**

> Oh good, my work at  
>  the hospital never was  
>  very absorbing. 

> **I shouldn't think so, no.**

> I was researching the  
>  victims ALL DAY TODAY,  
>  all seventeen of them. 

> I didn't take my lunch. 

> **That was poor planning.**

And John is angry, so suddenly angry that it must be irrational and he makes the decision to ignore it til he's on the tube.

Sitting in a nearly empty car with flickering lights and the milk on his lap numbing his legs with cold, he types out and deletes a few replies before settling on:

> Yeah, I'm an idiot.  
>  I'll be home soon. 

Sherlock didn't do these things on purpose, of course, but reminding himself not to get angry about it could get to be rather exhausting. It was unfair, really, that John had to calm himself down for other people all the time when the reason they pissed him off in the first place was their lack of consideration for him.

He realizes he's got the shopping bag in a strangle hold and pushes his angst aside again to contemplate when he's out on the street again.

Once he's walking up Baker Street he's quite forgotten his ire, and is mostly just worn out and defeated and cold. He jogs the last few meters to the front door and then again up the steps. The door to the living room is wide open and wonderfully warm air washes over him as he walks through the threshold.

He hangs up his coat and finds Sherlock engrossed in experiments at the kitchen table, something involving a pH kit and a box of crayons. Sherlock doesn't acknowledge him, though his phone is sitting on the table with John's last text displayed. John just crosses the room to put the milk away, not really in the mood to deal with Sherlock anyway, and already planning out a mindnumbing evening of beer and Eurotrash when he opens the door to the fridge.

"Sherlock," John says carefully. "Why is there milk in here." There's no response, so John stands beside the table and says, "Sherlock."

Sherlock doesn't look up. "I thought to myself, wherever shall I store a dairy product I purchased in the refrigerated section." His tone is very subdued, like a parent trying not to let the kids overhear something serious, except it was Sherlock and Petri dishes.

"I went out of my way. In the cold. To get milk for _your_ bloody tea. In the cold. Like I always do. What inspired you to do a turn as Suzy Homemaker all of a sudden?"

Sherlock's voice stays quiet. "If you look at the state of the flat I think you'll see that's clearly not the case."

But John is having trouble thinking past the blur of rage and injustice and being fed up. "You know, first you solve the case without telling me, after I wasted all my time helping out with it. And _now_ you—"

"The case which is solved, now, so."

Sherlock's mildness is infuriating. "You _know_ I always get milk!" John explodes, blood rushing in his ears, but Sherlock doesn't so much as flinch. " _You do this all the time!_ I can't fucking take this, I really can't . . . "

"You are going to wake the neighbors over milk," Sherlock says, even more softly. "You do realize that."

"Jesus Christ you are just . . . urgh, I can't _stand_ you sometimes."

Sherlock shoves the table so hard it collides with the workspace, his phone nearly falling off and making an almighty ruckus and probably leaving skid marks on the floor. Sherlock stands, shoves John against the table with much the same force and gets close and stares at him. John is so angry, but he can't help glancing at Sherlock's parted mouth and licking his lips.

Sherlock doesn't kiss him, though he does sweep the clutter on the table to the side before turning John around and bending him over it. He pushes John's jumper up and leaves sucking kisses up his back and shoulders, running his hands up the backs of John's thighs and kneading his arse.

John isn't sure when he'd got hard, but he certainly had, and Sherlock's hot breath scattering across the nape of his neck wasn't helping. "Sherlock, we can't just have sex instead of talking about things."

Sherlock doesn't answer. He's yanking John's shoes off, pulling his trousers and underwear down, kissing the side of his neck.

John can't help shivering in a way that is unhelpfully contrary to what he's trying to convey: "Sherlock, come on, we've got to hash this out before . . . before, _ah_ that's _cold_ dammit."

Sherlock turns John's head so he can kiss his mouth while working long slick fingers into him. John responds and tries not to think about what Sherlock might be using for lube, though he'd always been very clever about finding good substitutes when they were in the kitchen. Whatever it was it felt all right by now, and Sherlock must have got his trousers undone too because John can feel the stiff heat of his erection grinding against John's arse impatiently as Sherlock's fingers slip deeper inside of him.

John finds himself bucking back against it, trying to get him to hit the right spot but Sherlock doesn't seem much interested in what John wants. The head of his cock nudges against John's arsehole and John forces himself to relax as it drives past the ring of muscle and deeper. John gasps at the intrusive fullness of it, tries to prop himself up on his elbows a little better but Sherlock pushes him face down on the table, one heavy hand between his shoulder blades while the other grips John's hip to angle him upwards. After a long moment Sherlock curls over John and says in an unsteady voice, "Oh this feels perfect . . . " before starting to thrust shallowly.

John closes his eyes to revel in the sensations, the heat of Sherlock surrounding him and inside of him, light fleeting brushes of pleasure as his cock pumps in and out. John hates how slow Sherlock is going, hates how Sherlock had initiated this and _hates_ how he'd just given in to it like always. John practically snarls, "Just fuck me."

Sherlock does it, changing his careful thrusts to sharper deeper ones that take John's breath away fantastically. John has to brace himself with one hand against the workspace to keep still and keep it feeling good, and it soon feels _overwhelmingly_ good. John buries his face in the crook of his elbow, gasping and trying not to groan too loudly.

Sherlock growls without seeming to care how loud it is, fucking John so hard the table is shaking and clanging. The remains of Sherlock's experiment crash to the floor yet Sherlock seems not to care about that either, obsessed with scraping teeth and tongue across John's neck and shoulders, nails digging into John's hips as he pistons into him.

"Keep doing it like that," John says, muffled by his arm. "Goddammit keep— _shit_ . . . "

John comes with colors behind his scrunched up eyelids and Sherlock's harsh breathing in his ear. Sherlock fucks him faster, gives a broken cry when he comes as well soon afterward, stays inside him and looms over him repeating, "John, John . . . " Traces abruptly gentle fingertips up John's sides, turns John's head to kiss him unrelentingly at an awkward angle for five full minutes.

*

Lestrade is dumbstruck. "What do you _mean_ you've never been here?"

Sherlock watches the rain pattering down on the glass like it's offended him. " _You_ have?"

"Well of course, taken the kids a couple times . . . "

" _John_ hasn't been."

John cuts off Lestrade's impending retort: "Okay, _regardless_ of everyone's personal history with a Ferris wheel . . . "

Sherlock is silent, looking out toward Lambeth as their transparent, fogged up capsule begins to descend. It's oddly warm in here, and it feels both cozy and unnerving to be floating in relative comfort through the cold wet weather. The people who ran the Eye had kept any other passengers away while the police conducted their investigation, and an angry mob of tourists with Union Jack umbrellas is trembling far below on the pavement. "Pointless to go _sightseeing_ at all," Sherlock says impetuously. "It rarely ends up being of any use."

"Oh yes?" John says. "You seemed to know your way around the Tower of London, so I—"

"You think I need to _see_ the scene of the crime in order to make accurate deductions. It's not necessarily true in the case of these sort of tourist attractions, especially. It's easy enough to find out all the relevant information online or simply by way of common knowledge . . . "

"To be fair, your definition of common knowledge is a bit different than most people's."

Sherlock pauses to chuckle before striding across the capsule to look down at the Thames. Something he sees there apparently inspires him, and he takes his phone out and starts typing noisily.

John sighs. "Is it legal yet, Greg?"

"Sorry?"

"The union of smartphone and idiot detective under the law."

"Might in fact be more of a common-law thing, with Sherlock."

It's only once they're stepping off the Eye that Sherlock tucks his phone away safely in the inside pocket of his coat. Lestrade leads them off to the side where the witnesses are huddled together under a tree at various stages of soddenness. John has long since given up on toting an umbrella about, no matter how bloody unpredictable London weather was. Sherlock, though his hair was quickly beginning to flatten against his skull, still managed to look thoroughly impervious to such a mundane thing as rain.

"Well! It's high time you got off that blasted thing," says the victim, a flustered man with an oppressively respectable suit. Most people looked normal or well off or blue collar, but very few people actually _looked_ actively white collar. He was one of those few. "Though I am not at all sure why you aren't chasing after the culprit to begin with, to be quite frank. I was _robbed_. In front of my _son_." 

Sherlock frowns at him, probably solving the whole case in the blink of an eye.

"Apologies, Mr Ormsby," Lestrade says, "but unfortunately we do have to do a bit of actual police work here and there to catch said culprit, though if you're keen to chase him in the rain at nightfall, then do please be my guest."

Night is indeed falling, and John realizes he's been studying the blue glow of the Eye creeping over Sherlock's face and hasn't been doing much listening. Sherlock looked unreal in certain lights, in the shadows of taxis or in the tranquil gray landscape of the wee hours once your eyes adjusted. Sometimes, John woke up because Sherlock had kicked him accidentally in he night, pushing off covers or trying to get comfortable in his sleep. Sherlock looked too much like a black and white photograph in those moments, and far too peaceful, and it didn't feel quiet real. Now with the blue saturating his skin he looked much the same, and a bit like his eyes had leaked their color out over the rest of him, which was horribly odd and felt not at all like Sherlock felt. 

Mr Ormsby is still talking, though he doesn't appear to be doing much other than complaining and occasionally blaming the police for not having prevented such an outrageous crime from taking place in a supposedly free democracy. He has one of those little Poppy Appeal flowers that are invariably worn by the sort who felt that _saying_ they cared about supporting the armed forces was equivalent to actually caring or doing a bit more than buying a charming little plastic pin as a contribution. There must've been genuine people who sported them, but John had yet to meet one.

"Listen _here_ , Constable," Mr Ormsby says. Lestrade raises his eyebrows. "This, this _man_ who robbed me was rather unmistakable, let me tell you. Everything about him looked and felt unsavory, just ask the other witnesses who were on our ride! I find it very hard indeed to believe you incapable of tracking him down."

"He's got a point," a woman who's mostly hidden beneath a black umbrella adds. "Everybody saw him get on the Eye with us."

Lestrade massages his temple. "And yet nobody saw him get off again, I know, I know. Anything _else_ you can tell me? Any of you, please, we're just trying to get all the facts, okay?"

The small crowd glances around at one another and collectively shrugs.

"I saw him too!" pipes up another man in the crowd, who seems to be taking the whole affair as seriously as Mr Ormsby albeit in more of a hapless and perpetually astonished manner. "I can give you a description if you like, I'm sure of it! Anything at all I can do to help . . . "

"What about you." Sherlock's subdued voice cuts through the rain and the murmur of the crowd. He's looking at the teenage boy hovering at Mr Ormsby's side. "You haven't said a word. You saw the 'unsavory' man who clearly must have done it, too, I assume."

"Yeah, yeah," the boy says. "Like everyone said."

"Oh _indeed_ ," Sherlock says. "You all take great comfort in agreeing with one another and not quite stopping to think for yourselves because, well, everyone else simply _must_ be right, mustn't they? As for you—" He gestures dismissively at the second man who had spoken. "—you who offered to give a description. You might start by looking in the mirror."

The man frowns with extreme perturbation. "Beg your pardon?"

"Ladies and gentleman, may I present your robber! Oh, so terribly sorry, what was your name again?"

"Er, Moore?"

"Er Moore! When he got on the ride with the rest of you lot he happened to be wearing rather a worn out old hat he saves for rainy days, which is currently bulging out of his coat pocket. His coat is similarly shabby, however he took it off upon entering the capsule because it was warmer, and he stands before you now (no longer troubled by the rain for some reason) in a very fine Harvey Nichols suit, clearly a respectable man if you ever did see one."

Mr Ormsby pushes past his son and strides forward, getting in Sherlock's face. "Excuse _me_ , sir, but I do not believe we have been properly introduced? Are you some sort of intern or something?"

Sherlock ignores this and begins to circle him instead, hands clasped neatly behind his back as he continues. "So, prejudice plus herd mentality explains what you _thought_ had happened, here, but as to the robbery itself—well, clearly someone has to have done it. Now ask yourselves, who would have a motive to steal from Mr Ormsby? None of you had even met him prior to being stuck on a metal casket with him for 26 minutes today, though to be fair that would probably be enough to want to do more than pickpocket him." Sherlock stops his pacing in front of Mr Ormsby's son. "Oh, just hand it over," Sherlock tells him, and the boy digs into his backpack and hands Sherlock the wallet defeatedly. Sherlock deposits it in a puddle at Mr Ormsby's feet as he crosses back to where John is standing. 

John falls into step with him and they head back to the street. "Always with the dramatic exits," he says as soon as they take shelter in the tube station.

Sherlock shrugs. "No other type of exit is quite worth it."

They join the rapid flow of people through the station, not able to carry on a conversation behind each other or separated by people hurrying in zigzags to their destinations. He and Sherlock find a northbound platform and stand there dripping on the tiles. "So, let's have it then," John says. "How'd you know?"

"Almost painfully cliché, really," Sherlock says from behind a flock of umbrellas being shaken out. "That boy couldn't stand his father."

"Okay, but—"

"His backpack was unzipped just enough that the wallet was clearly visible, which also helped."

John laughs.

"Painfully obvious, really." Sherlock glances up at the train schedule. There's a Bakerloo Line train due any minute. It occurs to John that it'd be far easier to take the Bakerloo Line to and from work, but at this point he's become rather attached to the Circle Line, and anyway it made for a relaxing sort of commute during which to wrap his head around work or brace himself for Sherlock, depending on the direction. "His father didn't even notice. Presumably he'd been exhibiting little acts of rebellion frequently, and because none of them even showed up on his father's radar so far, he felt he had to resort to something more dramatic. And apparently it was necessary."

"Are we, er, still talking about Mr Ormsby?"

Sherlock's nonplussed. "Yes." He's absolutely soaked from the rain, but is so utterly unconcerned about it that John almost buys that he's dry as a bone. John watches a drop of water drip down Sherlock's nose from his hair and land on his parted lips, and Sherlock licks it up in exactly the same manner he'll lick precome from John's cock and John has to clear his throat before speaking.

"I couldn't work out the finer details, of course, but I definitely had a gut feeling about that guy, Ormsby," John says. "If he wasn't directly involved, it seemed pretty clear he had to have been at fault somehow, in a roundabout way like that."

"Got all that from a feeling?" Sherlock looks honestly interested in the answer, and it catches John off guard. Normally when Sherlock asked questions like that they were rhetorical, and setting John up to demonstrate how stupid what he'd just said had been.

"Well, yeah. Did you see the guy?"

Sherlock nods, seems about to say something but that's when the train pulls up.

*

"Graverobbers would bring corpses here, for sale," Sherlock says after the waiter takes their order.

John should probably be worried that the non sequitur doesn't faze him. And also that it made perfect sense for Sherlock to favor a place due to its status as a notorious corpse market of yesteryear. John takes a sip of water from a tall skinny glass. "Right here, here in this pub?"

"No no, not in this pub," Sherlock says irritably, hunkering down in the uncomfortable wooden booth and bringing one of his legs up to rest his chin on. "In the one on the other side of the Bart's. Nineteenth century doctors always keen on fresh meat to experiment on. Well, when I say fresh . . . "

"Charming dinner conversation, as always." 

Sherlock seems lost in thought now, so John sips more water and looks out the window. It's cold gray day and few people are walking by. The only reason he'd convinced Sherlock they ought to take a break from doing tests on evidence in the lab for some sustenance was because the evidence hadn't been very promising to begin with.

John had taken to eating at this pub, at the eye-rollingly named The Hope, after Sherlock's death. In his defense, he was not about to commit to eating in at one of those trendy organic-to-go delis or cramped coffee shops when there was a perfectly good pub in their midst. 

There is no denying he'd go out of his way just to walk along West Smithfield and stare at the place where Sherlock had fallen. Pretended to make phone calls from the phone booth there like nobody actually did these days and instead read the etchings in its red paint proclaiming _I believe in Sherlock Holmes_ and _Moriarty was real_ and catch himself hoping Sherlock's delusional fanbase were right before walking back to Barbican Station with purpose like he'd been on his way there all along. He'd just get it out of his system, then head back to reality and sense and sanity on a Circle Line train that was waiting for John on his out of the way route to work. He'd usually get as far as the Old Bailey's entrance where he'd ducked cameras with Sherlock before he'd begin to hope again.

In the present John stares out the window at a Barclay's across the street, shifting his focus between the blue letters lit up automatically in the London gloom and the Controlled Zone sign that blocks his view of the empty street. When John looks away he's surprised to find Sherlock gazing at him rather than navigating of recesses of his mind and otherwise dead to the world. Gazing is definitely the right word—Sherlock's eyes are soft and young and filled with John, and John's breath catches a bit.

"Sorry."

John frowns. "For . . . ?"

"It's usually the expected response," Sherlock shrugs. "So, the breakfast show case."

John's still wary. "What about it? Surprised you took it, actually. Seems a bit soap opera for your taste."

"It is. That's why you're going to handle it."

John raises his eyebrows. "Oh, so you're just delegating out menial tasks to me now?"

"Suspected adultery is hardly 'menial'."

"To you it is."

Sherlock snorts. "Go on then."

John sighs. "Right. Well. Liz Whitehead's husband is convinced she's cheating on him." Sherlock is waiting. "He . . . thinks so because she constantly erases her texts and call history on her phone. And because she's often wearing more perfume when she comes home than when she leaves for work."

"And?"

"And that's it. Her husband seems a nosy, disagreeable bloke to begin with, and it seems pretty clear she is in fact cheating on him."

"You're not really thinking about it, John. You're just going by your gut." Sherlock pauses to sigh. "As _usual_ . . ."

John tries to keep it in, but his voice still betrays his annoyance: "Why else would she erase her texts and call history?"

"She has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Obvious, from the rigid organization of the house, which clearly wasn't Mr Whitehead's doing—you saw the inside of his briefcase."

"Okay, but more perfume is presumably to cover up, you know, the smell of another man. I can't imagine she drenched herself in it just to pop on the tube. Well, then again—"

"No. Liz Whitehead never applied more perfume."

"Oh, come on, Sherlock, never mind the bloody evidence, what's _obvious_ is that her male co-anchor clearly fancies her, and certainly doesn't do a good job of hiding it."

"She's having an affair, but not with him."

"Oh really? Who then?"

Sherlock sighs, less amused and increasingly more disappointed in him. "Do at least _try_ to think about it."

Luckily the waiter comes back just then with their (well John's) food.

When John is halfway through his sandwich Sherlock starts stealing his chips. Sherlock nibbles on one lazily, seems content to sit in silence and observe their fellow pub patrons, one arm along the back of the booth, one bent leg still tucked against his chest. John's infuriated by his nonchalance, turned on by the sight of his skin and the memory of fucking him, and most of all desperate to earn his attention.

"Fine," John says. "Ignoring for a moment that I don't know _how_ you know she didn't apply more perfume. She must've got it from being, I dunno, near to somebody else with the same perfume?"

Sherlock glances at him, steals another chip. "Such as . . . "

"Er . . . coworker? Friend? Her sister who gave her the perfume as a gift last Christmas?" Sherlock just _watches_. And chews. "Am I hot or cold?"

"Hot, then cold."

"So a coworker then. A, well, a female coworker I assume."

Sherlock regards him, eyes a shade darker from the poor lighting in the pub. He drinks from his own water and replaces the glass with a thunk. "You're not as completely off base as you usually are. Liz Whitehead has been having an affair with the female financial analyst on the show, though it is, as you said, obvious that the co-anchor has designs on Liz as well. Wedding pictures in the house are dusty, hidden behind perfectly centered lamps and meticulously catalogued magazines. Liz and the financial analyst frequently maintain eye contact longer than is normal in social situations unless one or both parties harbors either sexual attraction or animosity toward the other. Liz, who generally only shows genuine interest in the latest celebrity scandal and who frequently mispronounces 'longevity' doesn't strike me as the sort who cares very much about the woes of Cypress's economy, and yet she is invariably smiling and attentive when turning the program over to finance." Sherlock sits back in the booth, clearly feeling very pleased with himself.

John laughs. "Mm, I _think_ you'll notice that you are not in fact going on very much at all, here. Just because two people have a liking for one another doesn't mean they're romantically involved."

"Well no, but—"

"You had a feeling about it," John concludes, folding his arms. "Oh just admit it. I won't tell anybody."

It's clear Sherlock is struggling to think of a decisive rebuttal. He opens and closes his mouth a few times but instead settles for eating another of John's chips.

*

They're on the Circle Line again, John standing in case somebody got on who actually needed a seat, Sherlock pacing up and down the car like a madman and inviting furtive glances from the other passengers. He's doing something on his phone and wobbling precariously on the unsteady train, though he always manages to find balance again, often by grabbing onto John inconsiderately and righting himself. John just stands there seething silently.

It's true that John had been less angry without Sherlock around to bring it out in him. But then again he'd also been numb and apathetic, and Sherlock brought out the good in him too, if only by comparison.

The train hits a bumpy stretch of tracks and Sherlock stumbles against John yet again, but John suddenly isn't endeared by it anymore. "Sherlock, will you _sod off_!"

"Oh, you're fi—"

" _Stop it_!" John shoves him away with more force than he'd really meant to, instantly embarrassed and aware of the eyes of the other passengers. In an undertone he says, "Just, this isn't really okay, is it? This, with us."

Sherlock's impassive, waiting for clarification and looking put upon.

_This is Notting Hill Gate. Change here for Central and District Lines._

Over the influx of people John continues, "We don't exactly have what you'd call a _normal_ relationship. You don't act any differently these days, you certainly don't act as though we're . . . just, I don't even know. I don't even know, anymore, really."

"But." Sherlock shakes his head, standing there frozen with his phone dangling from one hand. "Everything's _changed_ , now, John."

"Just, never mind. You've got a case, in a minute here, and you'll likely forget you even cared about this for two seconds on the tube, once." 

"We . . . what _else_ do you want me to say?"

John doesn't know, just laughs bitterly and spends the time til the next stop avoiding Sherlock's eyes. When the doors open again John charges off the train with the rest of the crowd without waiting because Sherlock can just find his own bloody way.

John pushes his way through, trying very hard not to be annoyed by them in Sherlock's stead. He finds an empty space in the crowd to overtake the slower walkers, his eyes glued to every _Way out_ sign so that he nearly trips over his own feet countless times along the way.

Sherlock calls after him, "The way out is this way, why are we—"

"They're redirecting me over here, Sherlock, or didn't you notice?"

"But _why_ —"

John throws his hands up. "James Bond's blown up the place again or summat, you know how it is. Things fall apart, the Center Line cannot hold."

He'd been hoping to maintain his breakneck pace through the upward swarm of the crowd, but unfortunately he and Sherlock soon hit a congested escalator and stand there a few bodies away from each other. Not that that stopped for Sherlock from perpetuating the conversation. Loudly.

"I don't know what you're so upset about, really," Sherlock is announcing. "It's not as though _you're_ shouting my name from the rooftops now that we have a sexual relationship. Well, no more than usual."

John just closes his eyes and prays Sherlock will get distracted by a drive-by mystery and shut up. The end of the escalator propels him forward, and John rushes ahead.

Sherlock is still talking from ten paces behind him. "You already know why I did it."

John heaves a sigh that comes out as more of a growl and shouts over his shoulder, "Did. _What._ "

Sherlock gives a derisive little laugh. "Faked my death. All of it. Stop being so gallingly _boring_."

John makes a beeline for the final _Way out_ sign up onto Kensington High Street, reaches the top of the stairs well ahead of Sherlock and looks down at him navigating the unforgiving crowd. "Er, no, I don't actually. Not really. _You've_ never told me about it."

Sherlock is rather comically astounded. "You already _know_ , John." He's nearly knocked back down the stairs by some particularly ambitious commuters. 

"Oh right, yeah, so I've _bloody_ well heard . . . "

"It was _you_ or _me_ ," Sherlock says, very clipped. He's halfway up the stairs by now. "If it was anyone else I would've chosen _me_ without a second thought."

It takes John a moment to hear him beyond the agitation in his tone, and when Sherlock emerges onto the street beside him the shock of daylight across Sherlock's face is like a punctuation. " _Everything_ ," Sherlock says. "Has _changed_."

John blinks at him, then realizes the crowd has shifted rather drastically to cross the street, and he and Sherlock hurry to follow them across where there emphatically is not a zebra crossing, and don't speak again until they've arrived at their destination.

Kensington Palace is one of the weirder attractions to visit considering the royal family did actually live there at times. It must've been a very odd sort of reality, to have half of your house literally be a museum. Then again being accustomed to a centuries old palace as your place of residence must've been odd to begin with.

John's quite exhausted his earlier anger, or at least he's uninterested in the effort of it for now. He follows Sherlock under a glitzy green veranda at the palace's entrance and into the lobby. They've purchased tickets and are strolling around the exhibit like a couple of tourists when it occurs to John that Sherlock hadn't exactly explained what they were doing here, in the first place. 

"What're we looking for?" John says, forgetting to sound exasperated.

"Not sure," Sherlock replies, equally without inflection. He leads the way up a spiral staircase. "Anything suspicious. Anything that strikes you as odd. Could use your renowned gut instinct on this one, in fact." Very careful teasing in his tone, and all at once the tension drains from John's shoulders because things are back to normal if not completely resolved.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but this whole place is rather suspect, if you ask me."

"Hm?" Sherlock turns to look at him and promptly crashes into one of the low flying paper birds hanging from the ceiling.

John laughs and Sherlock smiles briefly before walking onward, wrapping his coat around himself more tightly.

The palace is darkly lit and charming and odd, and John after awhile finds himself reading the little placards and lagging behind. Over by a window, Sherlock seems to have discovered something. He reaches into his pocket for his phone. And then the other pocket. And then he pats himself down. A bewildered expression passes over his face very briefly before settling back in to its usual bland aloofness.

John walks over to him. "Found anything?"

"Possibly. Watch the cameras."

"Erm, okay."

They go through the rest of the exhibit, Sherlock studying pillows by the window seats, and plucking up a whole row of them that are embroidered stylistically with royal countenances. Some Russian tourists whisper to each other as they pass Sherlock frantically tossing the pillows aside. John hazards an apologetic smile while struggling to catch them before they hit somebody. 

Back in the lobby, Sherlock casually asks John for his phone.

Sherlock works out the passcode with ease and dials. "Lestrade," he says. "Yes, you were right, inasmuch as you had a inkling that something may potentially have gone rotten in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Save it? Save it for when, exactly? You'd prefer to get all my 'prattishness' out at once at some future date, instead?" Sherlock sighs dramatically and starts to trudge around the room not unlike a teenage girl. "It's a drug ring, of course. Drop points are hollowed out pillows all over the palace, though they change them frequently. Smugglers come in looking like tourists, and it's easy enough to fit a gram of cocaine in the spot where a battery's meant to be in the bigger cameras, nicer model Canons and Nikons. Who? All the staff are certainly in on it. They hand out maps and point out exhibits the tourists might be interested in, and take particular care with those with especially bulky cameras. If they're smugglers, they'll know to be looking for the drugs. If not, they'll get a lovely view of the gardens. Practically nobody's going to scan a camera at a security check point. Very few places will do much more than glance inside the bag to see that it is in fact a camera, and most won't even do that. No, I don't feel particularly inclined to do the interrogations, actually. That's rather your division, I think you'll find." Sherlock hands John his phone. "What?"

John takes a look around the empty lobby to ensure it's truly empty. He then crosses the room to one of the doors marked _Staff Only_ , to which Sherlock raises an eyebrow before following after him.

There aren't any staff in the little room, which seems to be mainly used for storage. The wallpaper is, somehow, Princess Diana wallpaper, which doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd _actually find_ in a place like this. The room is dim and lit only by the natural light from a single high window.

"You left your phone on the tube, didn't you," John says.

Sherlock's mouth twitches, considering his words. "Yes," he says at length.

It makes something click for John just to hear him admit it, so he obeys the sudden snowballing impulse to seize Sherlock by his coat and kiss him. Sherlock's tongue snakes out to part John's mouth almost immediately, and little waves of arousal pulse up John's spine.

Sherlock's hands are all over him, sliding under John's jacket and sliding over his arse. John isn't sure how he'd lost control of the situation so quickly, left gasping and straining into the attention, delightedly dizzy with Sherlock's scent and the little gusts of his accelerated breathing against John's face. John presses his thigh against Sherlock's groin and grins at Sherlock's muttered swear.

Sherlock abandons the kiss, holding John's arms at his sides and kissing his way down John's neck. He pauses to suck at it here and there, paying such attention to a particular spot that John's sure a bruise is already forming.

Sherlock continues lavishing John with kisses, along his jaw and delicately down his throat, biting at John's collarbone and mouthing greedily through his shirt as he drops to his knees. Sherlock looks up at John, noses at his bulging erection through his trousers.

As nice as that is, John isn't quite in the mood. He joins Sherlock on the floor and uses Sherlock's momentary surprise to tackle him, spreads Sherlock's legs with his own while one hand fists forcefully in Sherlock's hair and the other unbuckles his belt. Sherlock's smile is positively salacious, and he arcs his hips up so that his still clothed cock bumps against John's knuckles.

Sherlock reaches for John's fly but John gives him a stern look. Sherlock _mm_ 's and lets his arms fall uselessly at his sides, licks his lips and grinds against John's hand again. John bends to kiss his mouth, then pulls Sherlock's pants and trousers down to his ankles. Sherlock stays where he is and watches avidly as John removes his own shoes, trousers, and rather cruelly constricting underwear.

Sherlock swallows, sheen of sweat across his forehead glistening as he twists his head to look behind him. "Door locked?"

"No idea," John says gruffly.

They usually stayed standing up when succumbing to their baser desires within earshot of the rest of the world. It's rather nice to be having sex in public and actually be lying down rather than feeling so horribly unbalanced, for a change. And God, what the hell was John's life that this was even a thought he was having? 

John leans over Sherlock, sucks at his neck and ruts against him erratically. He finds a nice visible spot high on Sherlock's neck that he won't be able to obscure with his scarf and bites it rather hard, making Sherlock clutch at him and jerk his hips up. John pulls back to watch Sherlock's closed eyes and reddened lips, reaches down to grasp Sherlock's cock and stroke him lightly. 

After several lovely minutes, Sherlock's face travels away from slack-jawed pleasure and settles on consternation. "Where's your gun?"

"Need I remind you that I no longer tell you where I keep my gun after you shot the telly with it one quiet Sunday afternoon and prompted our vigilant neighbors to call the cops on you."

"Oh, it was worth a try."

John laughs. Then he groans as Sherlock thumbs unhurriedly over the leaking tips of both their cocks, smearing precome everywhere. John groans louder as Sherlock wraps his hand around their shafts and pumps them torturously slow.

"Fuck," John mutters, bracing himself with one bent arm for some leverage above Sherlock's head and thrusting into the friction. The slick heat of it, the cling and catch and slide of oversensitive skin and knowing that Sherlock was feeling the same thing, how fucking hard John was and how fucking hard Sherlock was and the taste of Sherlock's skin on John's tongue that had become something he craved though he couldn't quite describe it.

"John," Sherlock purrs, with a devastatingly dark look to match. "More."

John nods frantically, thrusts harder while Sherlock squeezes harder and begins to move his hand in sharper counterpoint, faster and faster alongside their combined shortening breath. John comes with a grunt, all over Sherlock's cock and stomach and splattering onto his shirttails. 

Sherlock continues to jerk himself roughly using John's come as extra lubrication, eyes gone vibrant that are fixed on John and elegant pale face just hopelessly flushed. John's arms shake with the effort of keeping him upright but he's so utterly caught by Sherlock's gaze that he couldn't move if he wanted to. When Sherlock comes he tenses, holds his breath for a long moment and lets it out shudderingly. As Sherlock's breathing slows John kisses him just to feel him sucking in air and the rise and fall of his chest against John's.

*

They're mostly alone on the platform waiting for a train when Sherlock says, out of nowhere, "I've been beaten four times. Three times by men and once by a woman."

"Okay . . . " John thinks about it. "Irene, obviously."

"In a manner of speaking."

" _Yes_. And . . . well . . . Moriarty?"

"Fine." Sherlock squints at a passing train, but it's not the right one.

"Who were the others?"

"There was another boy a school who happened to outwit me at Trivial Pursuit on one occasion, however it is worth noting that he _cheated_."

"Oh really? How's that possible, exactly?"

"The category was utterly nonsensical, and any of the answers was as relevant as the other."

"I see." John waits. "I _can_ count, Sherlock."

Sherlock people-watches while he speaks, now. "I never thought this—this . . . this _us_ —would happen to me. I don't hate it as much as I might have anticipated. Though it is certainly a failure . . . Like I said, everything has changed, whether you are aware of it or not, and I suppose I ought to have expected some obtuseness on your part. Things have changed so that I can't always think properly, yet I find that I don't always care. Or I think of you sometimes without any purpose, and it doesn't bother me. And you make me go on this tiresome excuse for public transport constantly for reasons that are quite beyond me, but I keep going anyway."

 _This is High Street Kensington. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform._

"Nothing has changed for me." John realizes it's true as he says it. "I've always felt this way, really."

Sherlock reacts in John's favorite way, by laughing quietly to himself. "Come on. Some fresh air would be nice, don't you agree?" He spins on his heel and heads back to the stairs against the flow of the crowd, with John walking alongside.

The train they'd been waiting for comes and goes.

*


End file.
